Baltimore & O. R. v. Darr

204 F. 751, 1913 U.S. App. LEXIS 1342
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 5, 1913
DocketNo. 1,121
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 204 F. 751 (Baltimore & O. R. v. Darr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baltimore & O. R. v. Darr, 204 F. 751, 1913 U.S. App. LEXIS 1342 (4th Cir. 1913).

Opinion

PRITCHARD, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). This action was-instituted in pursuance of Act April 22, 1908, c. 149, § 1, 35 St at. 65 (U. S. Comp. St Supp. 1911, p. 1322), which, among other things, provides:

"Kvery common carrier by railroad, while engaging in commerce between any of the several states, * * * shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce * * for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employés of such carrier, or by reason ol' any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, tract, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment. ”

It is clear that it was the purpose of this act that every common carrier by railroad engaged in commerce between any of the several states should be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while employed in interstate commerce by such carrier for injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employés of such company, as well as employés injured by reason of any defect or insufficiency in its engines, cars, bo Its, etc.

Therefore the only questions that it becomes necessary for us to determine are as to whether, first, the defendant company as a carrier was engaged in interstate commerce and if the plaintiff below was at the time of the injury employed in such commerce; second, as to whether the injury the plaintiff sustained' was due to the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employés of such carrier, but there seems to be no controversy as to the second proposition. Therefore this leaves for our consideration the sole question as to whether, at the time of the injury, the engine in question was employed or engaged in interstate commerce.

The evidence offered in the court below was to the effect that this particular engine was used by a common carrier while engaged in interstate commerce. Manifestly it was the intention of Congress that this act should apply to a particular class of employés and to a particular class of carriers, to wit, those carriers that were engaged in interstate commerce and those employed by such carriers for the purpose of aiding them in carrying on the business. The plaintiff belonged to this class of employés.

If this engine had been stopped en route, while attached to a loaded train, either in the state of Maryland or in the state of West Virginia, for making needed repairs, it could hardly have been insisted that during the time consumed in making such repairs the defendant company was not engaged as an interstate carrier. The engine was making its daily trips through Maryland and'West Virginia, and while [754]*754temporarily in the yards at Cumberland, Md., it became necessary to make certain repairs that were essential to the successful operation of the defendant company’s trains. Therefore it necessarily follows that any work that was performed by the plaintiff was as much an incident of the business as if the accident had occurred while the train was on its regular trip either in Maryland or West Virginia. The learned judge who heard this case in the court below, among other things, made the following statement of facts:

“Tlie engine was at the time of the accident habitually used in interstate commerce, and apparently, from the testimony, in no other kind of commerce. It was not withdrawn from service. • * * The engine came in from its interstate commerce run as usual, and apparently went out as usual. The repairs which the plaintiff was making to it were of the ordinary trivial kind, which must be, and habitually are, made from day to day, without in any wise interfering with the ordinary and profitable use of the equipment. At the time of the accident, I am persuaded, the locomotive and tender were instruments of interstate commerce, as those words are used by the Supreme Court.”

The case of Johnson v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 196 U. S. 1, 25 Sup. Ct. 158, 49 L. Ed. 363, is very much in point. It appears that a dining car regularly used to furnish meals to passengers between San Francisco and Ogden was detached from the east-bound train at Promontory and left at that point to be picked up by the next west-bound train. Johnson sustained injuries while coupling it to an engine. In that case, as in this, it was insisted that for the time being the car was not engaged in interstate commerce. The court in that case said:

“Another ground on which the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals rested remains to be noticed. That court-held by a majority that, as the dining car was empty and had not actually entered upon its trip, it was not used in moving interstate traffic, and hence was not within the act. The dining car had been constantly used for several years to furnish meals to passengers between San Francisco and Ogden, and for no other purpose. On the day of the accident the east-bound train was so late that it was found that the car could not reach Ogden in time to return on the next west-bound train according to intention, and it was therefore dropped off at Promontory to be picked up by that train as it came along that evening. The presumption is that it was stocked for the return, and as it was not a new car, or a car just from the repair shop, on its way to its field of labor, it was not ‘an empty,’ as that term is sometimes used. Besides, whether cars are empty or loaded, the danger to employes is practically the same, and we agree with the observation of Judge Shiras in Voelker v. Railway Co. (C. C.) 116 Fed. 867, that ‘it cannot be true that on the eastern trip the provisions of the act of Congress would be binding upon the company, because the cars were loaded, but would not be binding upon the return trip, because the cars were empty.’
“Counsel urges that the character of the dining car at the time and place of the injury was local only, and could not be changed until the car was actually engaged in interstate movement or being put into a train for such use, and Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 6 Sup. Ct. 475, 29 L. Ed. 715, is cited as supporting that contention. In Coe v. Errol it was held that certain logs cut in New Hampshire, and hauled to a river, in order that they might be transported to Maine, were subject to taxation in the former state before transportation had begun. The distinction between merchandise which may become an article of interstate commerce, or may not, and an instrument regularly used in moving interstate commerce, which has stopped temporarily [755]*755In making its trip between two points in different states, renders this and like cases inapplicable. Confessedly this dining car was under the control of Congress while in the act of making its interstate journey, and in our judgment, it was equally so when wailing for the train to be made up for the next trip. It was being regularly used in the movement of interstate 1 raffle and so within the law.”

In the case of St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. v. Delk, 158 Fed. 931, 86 C. C. A. 95, 14 Ann. Cas. 233, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held as a matter of law that the car in question was engaged in commerce, notwithstanding the fact that it was kept out of service at least a day before the repairs were even begun.

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Bluebook (online)
204 F. 751, 1913 U.S. App. LEXIS 1342, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baltimore-o-r-v-darr-ca4-1913.